The premiumisation of the budget smartphone, which started a few years ago (and continues today), meant that everyone would have purchased a sub-Rs. 15,000 device were then willing to spend upwards of Rs. 20,000, provided the device justified its price tag. It could accomplish this by offering a decent set of cameras with good performance, faster charging, better displays and more. And so you could buy a quality smartphone like the 
iQOO Z10x primary camera samples (tap images to expand)
In daylight, the primary camera, at its default magnification, captures average photos for a smartphone at this price point. The photos will look fine on your phone, but zoom in even a little bit, and the images start to tear up. Dynamic range is decent, but there’s plenty of noise visible, especially in the shadows, even in daylight. You will also come across random patches with garbled details (bad noise processing), as is visible from the sample showing a main road above. Anything that moves gets blurred, and so the foliage and finer details are often lost.
Under dim or low light with street lighting, images appear soft and have a water-colour effect with blurred details
Using the 2X zoom (below) is not recommended, as the phone struggles to capture decent images at its default shooting resolution. The 10cm focussing range did allow me to get close enough for close-up shots (above).
The selfie camera offers good edge detection, but the image quality is strictly average.
Selfies have average detail and appear slightly soft, depending on the available light. The camera also has trouble exposing the subject in very bright environments, as can be seen in the first selfie sample. In low light, it’s not worth pulling out this phone for a selfie, even with the screen flash turned on.
Given that this is a budget smartphone, my expectations with video recording were not very high. The rear camera kind of proved this point by capturing very basic video quality (you can tell what’s happening in a scene) with bad dynamic range (clipped shadows). The phone also struggles to keep the frame in focus while panning, and the EIS results in a very cropped view. In low light, the details just aren’t there. It’s hard to identify people even when shooting a brightly lit street from a close distance. The video recording also appears jerky when walking because the camera lacks OIS.
iQOO Z10x Battery: Impressive!
- Battery capacity – 6,500mAh
- Wired charging – 44W
- Charger in the box – Yes
In our PC Mark Work Battery test, which runs a bunch of applications on a loop till the phone’s battery drains to 20 percent, the iQOO Z10x managed a respectable 24 hours and 10 minutes. In our video loop test, which plays an HD video on loop till the battery runs out, it managed a solid 37 hours and 46 minutes. Last year’s iQOO Z9x lasted 22 hours and 35 minutes in the same test, which goes to show that the higher capacity battery does bring about improvements in battery life.
iQOO’s Z10x packs a high-capacity 6,500mAh battery
During the testing period, despite heavy usage with the phone being used continuously (social media apps, mail, messaging etc., video streaming, 3D gaming), I only managed to drain the phone’s battery to 40 percent. So, it’s safe to assume that regardless of your usage, it should last you more than a day of heavy use and about two days with casual usage.
Charging is one area that has not got any upgrades. The charger isn’t exactly slow, but when paired with a battery with such a high capacity, charging takes a while. It’s still tolerable, with the phone managing a 38 percent charge in 30 minutes, 74 percent in an hour and completing the charging process in 1 hour and 36 minutes.
iQOO Z10x Verdict
After spending time with the iQOO Z10x, it’s clear that the brand has not cut any corners for its new Z series smartphone. iQOO has attempted to fix the flaws of the previous model but came up short of the competition in some areas. There is a silver lining to iQOO’s efforts to stand out (bigger battery delivers better standby), but it could have focused its efforts on better-optimised software and a better set of cameras, even if it just delivers the basics.
Poco’s M7 Pro (Review) may not offer the best performance in its segment, but it gets you an AMOLED panel with deep blacks that many will appreciate and an OIS-stabilised camera that will get you sharper photos. It’s still the phone to beat in this segment, with prices starting from as low as Rs. 13,700 for the base 6GB RAM variant. CMF’s Phone 1 (Review), apart from its Super AMOLED display and slightly better cameras (compared to the Z10x), also offers something exciting with its modular approach for the DIY crowd at this price point.
